I hope SMG employees can see chiropractors as part of their benefits package. These poor servers have to walk around hunched over Quasimodo. I kinda felt bad for them.

Thursday night my wife and I made our first visit to the new Studio Movie Grill theater on Holcomb Bridge. I wrote a preview article about this a few weeks back. If you’re not familiar with their concept then read my article here. It’ll be interesting to see if this idea takes root in the burbs.

The theater is in an old grocery store, restored beautifully into a modern theater. Walking into the lobby feels nothing like a typical movie theater. Gone are cheesy video games and greasy pop corn stands. It is more like an upscale waiting room with a bar. You wait until they call you to enter the theater. It is almost like a train station or an airport terminal. “We are now seating for Sex and the City.” Excuse me, that’s my movie. Let me bring my cosmopolitan.

The theaters themselves are different of course. Each horizontal isle has seats on either side. The seats closest to the screen have a long bar-like table. On the other side of the isle are little tables big enough for two people. The little tables are perfect for a couple on a date because you have a tiny bit of privacy. On the other hand, these seats have more obstructions when Quasimodo walks by with drinks. If you want to avoid seeing the servers, sit at the bar seats.

You sit on chairs that are a lot like the big chairs in a conference room at work. They are comfortable but nothing like traditional theater chairs.

On each table is a little button and a red light. Pressing this alerts the staff that you need attention. The servers are very attentive and any of them can wait on you. I found that they have a small army of wait staff in each theater. We didn’t have to wait long at all when our button was pressed. The staff all carry little hand-held Palm-OS looking things to take orders. Very high tech.

So let’s talk about the food. The menu is heavy with stuff like pizza, burgers, sandwiches, wraps, etc. I picked a fried chicken sandwich and my wife a pizza. I didn’t care for the pizza much at all as it was a little on the bready side. My sandwich was pretty good but on par with something like Chili’s. It was about what I expected. This place isn’t going to win any culinary awards anytime soon, that’s for sure. It’s chain restaurant food with a couple-a extra bucks tacked onto the price.

Let’s talk beverages… They serve Pepsi products. Yeah, it’s a shame too. Someone from SMG corporate assured me here on my blog that they’d have Coke products in Atlanta. Not so much. They do have Diet Dr Pepper which is a decent alternative. Their bar has some interesting cocktails yet lacks a deep selection of beer.

The movie watching experience was nice. You can feel the quality in their projectors and sound system. The basic ticket prices for movies are in-line with traditional theaters in Alpharetta.

All in all, I thought it was a cool theater. The food isn’t anything to write home about, but I kinda expected this. There is some disruption to the movie from the wait staff but I expected this as well. They do indeed try hard to minimize the interruptions. Quasimodo won’t say a word to you without a button push.

I’d go back to Studio Movie Grill. Drinking Yeungling while watching a movie is terrific. Having someone refill your drinks ain’t bad either. But get dinner somewhere else before coming.

And for complete disclosure… I was invited to attend on media night and was given free admission and food. I don’t think it clouded my judgment though. I’ll let my readers be the judge of that.